Einleitung

So you just purchased our Level 1 Soldering Kit to practice your through-hole soldering. This guide will help you through the steps while teaching you about soldering, resistor reading, and component polarity. Soon, you'll be ready to replace the battery in your iPod Nano 3rd Generation.

Ersatzteile

Before diving into the assembly of your brain game, we should go over the procedure for through-hole soldering.

Why is it called through-hole, you ask? You'll notice the circuit board has a bunch of holes in it, each with a copper trace on the underside of the board. The leads of each component are fed through these holes (hence through-hole) and soldered to the copper trace.

Through-hole soldering is generally regarded as the simplest form of soldering.

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The most important tool for any soldering job? Your soldering iron, of course! For this procedure we'll be using the soldering station that we sell in our parts and tools store.

For this project, you won't want your soldering iron to exceed 40 watts at the tip. For our station which draws 50 watts of power from the wall, it is safe to crank it up all the way to max.

If this is the first time you're firing up your soldering iron, you may notice some smoke and a not-so-pleasant scent. Don't worry; this is just the coating on the tip burning off. Wait a couple minutes for the soldering iron to stop smoking.

Before you start soldering, be sure to dampen your cleaning sponge. A dry sponge will just get burned.

It is always a good precaution to wear safety goggles while soldering. Hot pieces of solder occasionally shoot off and a scorching piece of metal to the eye will ruin even the greatest optimist's day.

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You must be itching to throw down some molten metal by now; however, you still need to prepare the tip of your soldering iron.

Now that your soldering iron's tip is hot, clean it by melting a small amount of solder directly on the tip and wiping it off on your damp sponge.

Melt another small ball of solder onto the tip of the soldering iron, but do not wipe it off. This is called "tinning" the iron, and will improve heat conductivity, allowing you to solder more quickly and efficiently.

Regular cleaning and tinning of your soldering iron while working will lead to better solder joints and longer tip life.

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We all make mistakes, especially when trying something new. Soldering is no exception, so here's what to do when one of your soldered joints comes out less than ideal.

Lay a strand of desoldering braid over the solder in question. Press the tip of the soldering iron firmly onto the desoldering braid. This will heat up both the solder and the braid.

Do not hold the braid close to the solder point while using it—it gets very hot and can burn you.

Be careful not to lay the desoldering braid across the fiberglass circuit board. As the braid heats up, it could leave marks in the board.

The solder should flow from the joint to the desoldering braid. After the solder flows into the braid, remove it and the soldering iron from the board. You should now have a clean contact to start over with. Use wire cutters to cut off the used end of the desoldering braid.

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So, what are resistors, and why do we care about them? Resistors are components used in circuitry to control the amount of current flow. The more resistance a resistor has (measured in Ohms, Ω), the less current it allows to flow.

The colored bands on a resistor are the key to determining the resistance of that particular resistor. A resistor color code chart will come in handy here.

If there are four bands on your resistor, the first band to locate is the red, gold, or silver band on one of the swollen ends; these are called tolerance bands. Since our resistors have gold bands, we know the actual resistance is within ±5% of the nominal value

The next step is to determine the nominal value of your resistor. Starting at the opposite side of the tolerance band and moving from left to right, there are three colored bands. The first two color bands correspond to a number (0-9), and the third band is the multiplier band, which corresponds to a specific power of 10.

Looking at the top resistor shown, we see yellow, violet, and red bands. Consulting a resistor color code chart shows us that those correspond to 4, 7, and 100, respectively, giving us a nominal resistance of 4,700 Ω.

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Dig around your kit a little more, and you'll find some new and exciting components with long leads attached to them.

These are diodes—circuitry's "one way" signs. Their job is to make sure that current only travels in the forward direction, from anode to cathode, while blocking it from traveling in reverse. Current enters the anode (positive terminal) and leaves the cathode (negative terminal).

Since they only allow current to travel in one direction, it is rather pertinent that you install diodes with the correct polarity. The stripe on a diode signifies which side is the cathode.

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Next you will install the IC socket, also known as a CPU socket. IC sockets use a mechanical connection to connect a processor to a printed circuit board. These sockets allows the processor to be easily replaced without the risk of damage associated with soldering processors directly to a circuit board.

Stick the eight leads of the IC socket through the holes in the rectangle marked IC1. Make sure that the semi-circle on the top of the socket lines up with the semi-circle printed on the edge of the rectangle on the circuit board.

Turn the board over and solder the eight leads of the IC socket to the board. Similar to soldering the buttons, there is no need to trim any excess off the leads.

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Locate the semi-circle labeled T1 and insert the three leads through the holes.

Make sure that you line up the flat part of the transistor with the flat edge of the semi-circle on the board. The two end leads fit into the holes on the ends of the flat part of the drawing. The middle lead will need to be bent so that it feeds through the hole closest to the T1.

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Bonus! You thought you were just learning how to through-hole solder, but Included with this kit is a complimentary intro to surface-mount soldering. Surface-mount soldering is commonly used to attach batteries to circuit boards in some devices, such as iPods.

Set the tip of your soldering iron on the large copper negative solder pad. This will allow heat to conduct through the solder pad, making soldering easier.

Touch your solder to the tip of the soldering iron and keep feeding it until you have a smooth, convex solder dome on the copper pad.

If the solder doesn't come out quite right, you can always use the iron to melt it again or add more solder.

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Repeat the surface mount soldering procedure for the negative battery terminal lead. Be sure to install the lead so that the excess wire hangs off the opposite side rather than the positive terminal lead.

Now that you have installed whiskers on your circuit board, it's time to pet it and buy it a scratching post. Wait, that's not right . . .

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Keeping your fingers on the screw heads to hold them in place, grab the battery compartment with your thumb and flip it over. The screw threads should protrude out of the top side of the battery compartment.

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Use a spudger to pry the metal rings on the battery terminals up so that they perpendicular to the battery terminals.

These rings should be on the same end as the surface mount leads. If they are on opposite ends, the board is on backwards, and you'll need to unscrew the nuts, rotate the circuit board 180°, reinstall the nuts, and tighten the two screws.

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Upon inserting the final battery, the four LEDs should start flashing in a clockwise pattern. Congratulations, you did it!

To play the game, follow these instructions:

Remove one of the batteries. Then, reinsert the battery while holding the Level 2 button for no sound or the Level 1 button for sound. Release the button a couple seconds after the battery is inserted. The game will eventually power off on its own. To wake it up to play, press either the Level 1 button to play with sound, or the Level 2 button to play without sound.

As the LEDs blink in a clockwise rotation, press one of the four buttons to select the level of difficulty (printed above or below the buttons).

After selecting your level, the game begins. It is a typical Simon Says-like memory game. The LEDs will flash one light, then you have to click that button. Then it will flash two lights and you have to click those two buttons in order.

The game progresses until you mess up the pattern or take too long to respond.

Have fun! And be sure to tell us all about your high scores in our Story section.

5 Kommentare

Thanks for a great tutorial, but apparently the design for the battery compartment has changed since this was made. It now comes with just one bendable lead on the top end and one on the bottom end of the compartment, which makes soldering to the battery compartment less straight forward. seems like it might be a manufacturing error. I got a replacement sent to me when I realized this, thinking it was a one-off, but the replacement has the same design. It's weird because even the (much less descriptive) guide that comes with the set shows 2 bendable leads on one end like yours.

I am having the same exact problem. My wife got this for me as an anniversary present. I am at the part where you are supposed to do the soldering to the battery box. Needless to say, I am stuck. I am thinking I’m going to have to find a piece of wire with insulation on it that I can use in the place of the junk that is in the box for this connection to the positive terminal. It’s the only solution I can think of, anyway.

The kits as they come will not be able to have the two small bendable leads attach to the battery pack. In the guide it shows both leads attaching on the same side of the box but the kit has a battery box with the leads on opposite sides. I ditched the bendable leads entirely and just used some extra with I had to complete the connection. Not a huge problem if you have spare wire but annoying.